Apr 10: VL vs Hartford
Posted on Monday April 19th, 2010 @ 06:11:13 pm

New York City – The Leonas played Hartford this weekend at Randall’s Island. It was a challenging game, with Hartford’s larger pack dominating in the scrums and disrupting loose ball at the breakdowns. Coach Mary said: ” The Lions took advantage of the few opportunities presented and made the most of them; especially Kathleen with her score from a quick penalty tap.” Consistent tackling and intelligent use of those opportunities led the Lions to a 17-5 victory.

At the beginning of the game Hartford and the Leonas each struggled to establish their own pattern of play. Hartford’s defense around the breakdowns took away the chance to play multiple phases effectively. Coach Mary noted that, “their big forwards also tried muscling through the fringe defense repeatedly; outstanding tackling by the Lions’ forwards shut down most of these attempts with little to no gain.” So neither team was making much headway past the gain line in the forwards, fittingly, it was the Lions’ backs who broke through for the first score.

One phase off a set piece, the ball went out through the hands to OC Rosie Rough, who shimmied through the line, pinned the last defender, and popped the ball to Sarah “Svetty” Landry, who ran over for the score. Svet was also commended in the post-game wrap up by Mary for loudly and repeatedly calling for defensive support from her position at wing.

The improvement of the Lions defense was noticed by many of the players; flyhalf Kim “Kimbo” Dacres commented that, “we had nice post-D.” And the Lions held off Hartford from their try line a couple of different times, tackling and tying the ball up in-goal until Hartford made a mistake or the ball was turned over and cleared.

The second score of the half was Kathleen Ryan’s 50-yard run from a quick-tap penalty. Prop and Silent Force Taryn Goodman remarked that, “It was awesome when Kath took that penalty and ran it in herself-no one was expecting it.” Especially not the Hartford players, only one realized what was going on in time to chase, and by then Kath was past the point of catching.

The score right before halftime lead to a more confident start to the second half. Although, “we gave away a lot of possession, our fitness in the second half enabled us to shut down all attacks on the Hartford side,” noted Mary, “it showed we have a lot to work on but overall it was a positive effort by the team.”

Despite the good start by the Lions’, Hartford scored first in the second half. In a nice series of play they worked the ball up the field, alternating punches with runs in the backline, and finally put it over in the corner, the try wasn’t converted.

While still dangerous, the effectiveness of Hartford’s forwards was diffused in the second half. A number of changes to the Leonas line-up at the half allowed everyone to get some quality minutes, and SF Taryn and Woman of the Match Tricia Stanley led the pack in neutralizing the threat those big Connecticut ladies posed with strong tackling and improved scrummaging. WOM Trish, “Their scrums were strong, we did a better job of combating this in the second half by locking out.”

The final score of the game came from shifty OC Rosie Rough, she had a nice breaking run from about the 22m line, dotted down near the posts and slotted her own conversion, no problem.

Lions 17:
Landry (5) Ryan (5) Rough (7)

1 Kelly Rogers 2 Sari Warren 3 Taryn Goodman 4 Sharon Berger 5 Angie Catalano 6 Emma Fisher 7 Tricia Stanley 8 Meg Collins 9 Becca Asser 10 Kim Dacres 11 Maggie McNicholas 12 Jackie Finlan 13 Rosie Rough 14 Sarah Landry 15 Kath Ryan